A high-performance 8ft five fin setup that paddles long and surfs short. Designed by Bondi Rescue’s Anthony “Harries” Carroll and shaped by Sunova’s legendary Burt Burger. The 8Ball is a performance mid length board that you can hook turns deep in those pockets, driven by the needs of surfers who want serious paddle power, but still want a board that performs off the tail. We took some of the characteristics of our long time favorite performance shortboards and we put a longer front end on them. The result is a board that can catch waves like a longboard but surf off the tail like a shortboard. We took the nose entry and flattened it for additional paddle power, then took enough area out of the nose to keep the rails from catching on late drops. As you step onto the tail the curvy outline and performance rocker of the shortboard kick in and you are away, having a ball. Put the Bondi 8Ball in the pocket and let it rip. About the Board GENERAL GOAL / THEME OF THE BOARD A loose, good paddling mid-length board that can handle a range of conditions. IDEAL WAVE TYPE All waves, however, it favours juicy waves. From just under waist high up to double overhead and more. MANOEUVRE IT DOES BEST Back foot snaps and powered-up roundhouse cutbacks. SKILL LEVEL Novice to Pro. PADDLE POWER Average. Design Info OUTLINE Narrower pulled in longboard nose, widest point pulled back into a hip flyer, rounded pin. The benefit of pulling the widest point back is you get a long nose and a short tail, so the tail resembles a shorter board. When you stand on the tail to turn, it really does feel like you’re on a shorter board. Combined with the hip/flyer it does incredibly tight back foot snaps, gets vertical easily, and hooks under the lip. RAILS Standard profile. A lot of boards at this length assume the rider needs extra float and generally come with thicker rails which are harder to bury and have less sensitivity. The 8 Ball’s rails are relatively refined, even more in the tail, so it feels more like the backend of a high-performance shortboard. ROCKER Full high performance rocker. With this amount of rocker the board fits nicely into tighter parts of the wave, it prefers being pumped for speed, instead of someone waiting for it to build its own momentum. It also likes a tight cutback at speed along with throw type manoeuvre, where you may be going slow, but you can still throw the board up to the lip. BOTTOM Flat bottom. The idea is to keep the board going fast, it already has plenty of features to keep the board loose and sensitive, no need for added contours as the overall design is not dependent on bottom contours for control. Additionally the general Sunova construction with the flexible bottom adds another dimension that reduces the need for contours. DECK Standard. Not much going on here apart from thickness distribution. Having the nose and tail quite refined reduces swing weight and keeps the tail feeling sensitive and flexy. FINS 5 FCS II . Our pick is the quad setup for those super sucky pockets, holding a high line and doing rail turns. The thruster also loves a slightly smaller tail fin, as this frees the tail up a little better in tight under the lip style turns and snaps in general. DIMENSIONS 8' 0" x 21 5/8" x 2 11/16" 49.8L Q&A Sunova Surfboards Q1 - It has like a round little pressure valve on deck. I intend on putting the board on a plane soon. What’s the deal with it. What do I need to do? A1 - The vent in the board has a self regulating Goretex membrane inside, which will enable the board to regulate its internal pressure and breath through changes in temperature and pressure. You should never need to adjust or remove the vent, unless you are performing repairs on the board. Q2 - What do you recommend for fixing dings on this type board with the bamboo deck? A2 - For repairs just treat it as if it’s a standard epoxy board, there’s nothing special that needs to happen specifically. It will always come down to the location, type of damaged etc. Just make sure to take it out of the water as soon as you get a ding or it will suck water, always use epoxy resin for repair.
